


Moments

by ExplainingTheIndescribable



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-28 21:16:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16730775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExplainingTheIndescribable/pseuds/ExplainingTheIndescribable
Summary: Sometimes it takes a series of little moments to realise something might be more than you thought it was.





	Moments

As she walked out of the Tardis and out among the trees, the Doctor span around, trying to make sense of the forest around her which wasn’t supposed to be there; as she did so, she caught sight of a glint between the branches of the trees canopied over them. Shielding her eyes from the sun she tried to focus on what it could be, hoping, as she was wont to do, for a clue.

“It can’t be…“

Before she could dwell on the mystery, she heard the whistle of a small projectile, right before feeling a sudden sharp pain blossoming from her calf. She winced; it was bad but she’d experienced worse, it must’ve just grazed her; before she could check the damage, she heard a voice

“Doctor? What’s taking so long-“

Thirteen tackled Yasmin to the ground as another small projectile pierced through the air where Yaz had just been standing.

“We may have, sort of, accidentally landed in a forest which isn’t supposed to exist.” Another shot hit the ground close-by, causing a flurry of dirt from the small crater the impact created, “ah, and it appears to be some sort of, uh, battleground?”

Yaz looked at the Doctor incredulously, which the Doctor didn’t notice in the slightest, being far too preoccupied with their current situation and how to get out of it. It wasn’t until the Doctor started speaking again that Yaz realised she’d been staring a little too long at her; the Doctor had the most endearing look of confusion on her face. But then, Yaz thought pretty much everything about the Doctor was endearing.

“Sorry, what were you saying?”

“I’m going to cover you, get back to the Tardis and lock the door, she’ll protect you-“

“No way. There’s no way I’m going to leave you-”

“What’s going on here then, Doc?” Graham appeared through the trees, before seeing that the Doctor was still bodily shielding Yaz by being on top of her. He tried to suppress a smile; it was about damn time, “I’ll come back later then, shall I.”

“Oh, not you too Graham,” the Doctor said exasperatedly.

“Not ‘me too’ what?”

“Could everybody just stay inside next time we crash-“

The rest of the Doctor’s sentence vanished from her mind as Graham clutched his stomach and doubled over. Red dripped between the fingers splayed across his stomach.

“Graham? Graham!!”

The Doctor turned to Yaz, “help me carry him back to the Tardis and we’ll figure the rest out later.”

Yaz nodded, holding him under the arms and the Doctor picked up his feet.

“Come on Graham, we’ve been through too much for you to do this to us now.”

They made it back to the Tardis without taking any more fire, before setting Graham down. The Doctor looked up to where Ryan was stood, frozen with uncertainty and holding a half eaten sandwich.

“Ryan, get the med kit. Yaz, I need you to put pressure,” she lifted Yaz’ hand and placed it over where Graham had been holding, “right there… Hang on a minute.”

The Doctor lifted Graham’s hand and the anxiety dropped off her face to be replaced by relief, “I knew something was off.” She grinned at Yaz, “Ryan! Don’t worry about the med kit, it’s all good,” she hollered, moments before a loud splash sounded from the same direction Ryan had left.

“Oops… I think I might have left it a bit high up and close to the swimming pool. I should really remember to move that in case of future accidents.”

Yaz looked between Graham, who was slowly sitting up, and the Doctor, “is anyone going to explain to me what’s just happened?”

“Oh, right! Yes. Well, Graham wasn’t really shot. Well, he was, but also, he wasn’t?”

“Doctor…”

“Right, yes. So, he wasn’t shot by a bullet. At least, not the one we thought,” the Doctor lifted up her injured calf, which looked smeared horrifically in bloody-looking streaks, and wiped some of the red right off.

“It’s paint! Like, from a paintball? The reason we ended up in a forest that wasn’t supposed to exist, was because it doesn’t actually exist. We somehow landed in a simulation paintball battle.”

“Are you telling me, a paintball’s just broken my ribs?”

The Doctor did a quick scan with her sonic, “not broken, just done some soft tissue bruising. You’ll be right as rain in a few days.”

“Yeah well it still hurt like the Dickens.”

“Paintball is a brutal sport. I guess that’s why it’s been outlawed in so many places.”

“Paintball, is outlawed?”

“God yeah, you’d be surprised what else is. Some places, you can’t even carry a rubber chicken without a special permit. It’s a good thing for psychic paper really, I don’t know where I’d be without it-”

It was at this moment a dripping wet Ryan squelched into the room, holding an equally wet med kit. He looked over at Graham, before putting the med kit on top of the nearby portable radiator.

“So, he’s okay then?”

“Yep, totally fine. It’s a rather funny story actually-”

“Speak for yourself,” Graham shook his head, suppressing a grin at Ryan’s bedraggled state. “I leave you alone for ten seconds…”

“And you almost got shot.” Ryan finished, raising an eyebrow at Graham as he started grinning back.

“What are you like,” Yaz shook her head at both of them.

The Doctor’s eyes lit up as she looked between her three companions, “shall we go and teach them a lesson?”

Graham lay back down, “do you know, I think I’m just fine here thanks Doc.”

Ryan nodded, growing the small puddles at his feet as he did so, “I second that, I need a bath; a warm one this time.”

The Doctor turned her head slightly to meet Yaz’ gaze full on.

“And you?”

Yaz pretended to think for a moment, “yeah, I think I could be up for a little friendly competition,” she said with a smile.

“Friendly? They almost killed me,” Graham muttered, “and death by paintball no less, what a way to go.”

Yaz looked at him with a suddenly serious expression, “you’re right, let’s destroy ‘em,” she winked at the Doctor.

The Doctor chuckled at Yaz’ pretend intensity, “right, let’s gear up then.”

Within ten minutes they were armoured up and had fully loaded paintballs guns

“Is there anything you don’t have on the Tardis?”

“Uh- I don’t know. If I think of something, I’ll make sure to add it. But she’s usually ahead of me on those kinds of things. She’s amazing like that,” the Doctor spared a quick smile around the Tardis as they headed out.

They fought valiantly, taking out a fair few from each side with multiple shots.

Yaz looked at the Doctor, “I know you don’t like guns, but you’re really good at this, like, really good.”

“Thanks, I really like those games at the fairground, or at least I think I still do, you know the ones where you knock cans and stuff down? I don’t why it’s so much fun, maybe because of the toy at the end,” the Doctor grinned and turned to Yaz.

“I love those things! When I was little it got really competitive between me and my sister, for who could win the biggest toy. One year…“

The Doctor looked at Yaz as she spoke, not quite noticing that she had inadvertently tuned out the story Yaz was telling; those deep brown eyes always drew her in, but didn’t quite stop her focus from drifting down to the way her lips moved when she spoke, or when she smiled . The Doctor had found herself falling into the habit of looking at Yaz in moments like this, when there was a moment of calm and quiet, and she could simply appreciate the way she looked when she told a story, the hand gestures she probably didn’t notice she made, the facial expressions that flittered across her features, the way she moved and it was so completely… her. Somehow her kindness and her intelligence, the protective side of her and the infinite compassion she held for others, even those she barely knew, all bled through the way she looked to the Doctor; it was entirely transfixing.

And it was causing the Doctor to miss entirely everything else going on in their immediate surroundings.

“Is that a white flag?”

At Yaz’ change of tone, the Doctor snapped back to attention.

“…I think so. It looks a bit like a pair of pants though?”

Before they could deliberate further, what looked like the captains of the two paintball teams, walked towards the centre of the adjacent clearing and appeared to be having a debate.

“We should probably let them know we’re here, it’s hardly fair otherwise.”

“Uh-“

Before Yaz could utter an objection, the Doctor had straightened up and started walking over to them, hands up, still holding her paintball gun.

“Don’t shoot, I come in peace,” she turned back to Yaz, who was half a step behind, “I’ve always wanted to say that. It wasn’t as satisfying as I thought it would be though.”

“Keep your rabble in line,” said the Captain wearing Luprel angrily to the one in Eragno.

The Eragno Captain fake laughed, “oh, great trick, I would never have seen this coming,” she spat to the side of the Luprel Captain. “It’s just like you to call in for back up. Still no honour among thieves, I see.”

“Uhm, hello. Sorry to interrupt, I’m the Doctor by the way and this is Yaz. Who are you?”

The Captains looked at each other with narrowed eyes, before finally coming to some sort of silent understanding.

“I’m Luprel, this is Eragno, but what matters is, why and how you’ve entered our tournament?”

“Oh, I love a good tournament. Probably. I’m still figuring ‘me’ out. Oh, and to answer your question, we kind of just wandered into it by accident, and then you shot our friend. And me, actually. So really, we were just having a bit of fun in return. So, uh, what are you tournaying for – is that a word? Tournaying? You know what, competing. I’m going to stick with competing.”

Eragno looked between Yaz and the Doctor, “so you’re telling me, your team of two, has taken out half of my squadron, by yourselves?”

“Well, yes. But not on purpose? Well, not with any malicious intent… It’s only paintball after all!”

Luprel rubbed their temple and sighed, “we’re competing for the right to rule the empire.”

“The… empire. The empire?”

“Yes, the current liege of this land thought it would be amusing for us to decide the line of succession through non-lethal combat. Even though I’m the rightful heir”

“Just call her ‘mum’, jackass. And we both know why. Plus, it’s done wonders for public morale.”

Luprel gave Eragno a withering look, “they didn’t need to know that we’re related.”

“Oh, you two are siblings!”

“Unfortunately,” said Eragno as Luprel merely grunted.

“Ah, well that’s great. Okay, I guess we’ll just leave you to it then. Good luck!”

“Wait,” Eragno said, looking to Luprel, “they’ve started. They have to finish.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

The two Captains proceeded to have a whispered, increasingly heated debate, until Luprel sighed, “I cannot believe mother thinks you can rule an empire like this.”

“Fair is fair,” Eragno quipped, “these are the rules. They will fight with us as equals and then they will die a warrior’s death.”

“Uh, did I miss something?” The Doctor piped up, “I thought it was non-lethal combat?”

Eragno looked to Luprel, “it is. But the queen is not known for being gracious to anyone who would challenge her progeny’s right to the throne,” Eragno gestured to Luprel.

“I see,” the Doctor nodded, looking at Yaz and hoping she understood the message she was trying to psychically convey, “rules are rules.” The Doctor paused, “but, personally, I’ve never been very good with rules.”

Quick as a flash, the Doctor took Yaz’ hand and damn near pulled her along as she ran towards the Tardis.

Yasmin kept pace with the Doctor as they ran, jumping over logs and dodging what looked like neon pink and yellow striped poison ivy, totally focused on running for their lives and not at all thinking about holding the Doctor’s hand, not even a little bit. Okay, maybe a little bit.

Once they were safely back inside the Tardis, the Doctor let go, leaving Yaz to close the door behind them as she ran to the console and started tapping away, pressing a series of buttons before yelling ‘hold on’ and pulling the final lever that would transport them to some other time and place.

Only, no one really had time to hold on. Thankfully for Graham, he was already sitting down, but unbeknownst to the Doctor and Yaz, after drying off, Ryan had gone to return the med kit to where he found it. A faint splash could be heard amidst the whirring exit noises of the Tardis.

Yaz didn’t have anything within reach to hold on to. She lost her footing and half tripped half flew along the length of the Tardis, right up until the Doctor caught her hand as Yaz almost went past her.

“I’ve got you,” she said with a smile that caught Yaz totally off guard, before the Doctor was back to focusing on what she was doing, and pulling back a lever that brought them all to an abrupt halt. Once he was sure of his bearings, Graham got up and left, muttering about finding a seatbelt for the next trip.  

A little distance away on the other side of the central pillar, the Doctor and Yaz had been thrown together once again. After a moment of disorientation, the Doctor realised she was on top of Yaz and immediately moved to hold her weight off her, as though she were doing a press up over her.

“Are you alright, Yaz?”

Yaz smiled, then grinned, then started full-out laughing, after a moment of which the Doctor joined in.

“We don’t half end up in some sticky situations.”

The Doctor grinned, “That’s definitely one way to put it.” She got up, before offering a hand to Yaz, which she accepted.

“I don’t think I’d change a thing about it though.” Yaz pulled herself up, rising to stand slightly closer than companions usually would.

“Yeah, no; I don’t think I would either,” the Doctor tilted her head slightly with a smile, seeming either not to notice their proximity, or not to care to move away.

Neither spoke for a moment, seemingly caught in their own little bubble, both hyper-focused on each other and unaware of their surroundings.

“Doctor…” Yasmin inched just a little closer to the Doctor, fixing her gaze to the collar of the Doctor’s coat, “I’ve never met anyone like you before.”

“In all of space and time, I’ve never quite met anyone like you either, Yaz.”

Yaz looked up to see the Doctor gazing at her with a quiet sincerity she hadn’t seen from her before.

With slow and deliberate movements, the Doctor cupped Yaz’ face and kissed her softly, before pulling back.

The Doctor searched Yaz face for any indication of if she was feeling the same (although probably half as many) heart palpitations, or if she should stay back, but Yaz’ eyes stayed closed.

“Is that… okay?”

Yaz sighed and smiled, eyes opening and focusing her gaze on the Doctor.

“Yeah, that’s… that’s more than okay. I just wanted to remember that feeling.”

The Doctor flushed and smiled awkwardly.

“I think I should’ve told you, I mean, I am telling you now, but I mean at the time, but I didn’t know if it was okay– I mean, it was also bit daunting with us being around your family and everything-”

“Doctor…”

“Yes, right, I’m rambling. I just wanted to say, that, back when we were at your place, when your mum asked if we were seeing each other, and then when you said we were friends, well, it made me realise, I mean, I just thought that maybe…” Yaz gave the Doctor a look, successfully suppressing a smile at where she was pretty sure this was heading and her ever-endearing Doctor, “sorry, I’m rambling again aren’t I. Let me put it simply, I think, if you would like to-”

Yaz cut her off with a kiss, which the Doctor was more than okay with.


End file.
